Catholic Church

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing - In one sense, laicization would bring McCarrick’s part in the saga of the clerical sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church to a deservedly ignominious end. He is an old man now, wretched and pitiable, whatever his crimes. But of course, the bitter fruits of his sins are still ripening to harvest… First, of course, are his victims: those he abused and coerced and harassed… They have suffered the most grievous, life-altering wounds. Suffering can be made redemptive, through God’s grace, but there is no promise that such wounds will ever fully heal.

By Msgr. Charles Pope - Beginning in the mid-sixties, however, weekly Mass attendance by Catholics began to drop. According to some polls, nearly 80 percent of Catholics were regular attendees in the mid-fifties; today, that figure has dropped to as low as 20 percent. Open dissent from Church teaching grew among the faithful and the clergy, especially after Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which re-affirmed the rejection of artificial contraception.

By Constance T. Hull, Catholic Exchange - There is nothing in this life that has taught me more about human nature, myself, and the mystery of suffering than the Cross. It is through meditating on and enduring my own Crosses and the Crosses of those around me that God has broken into my life in the most profound ways. Broken in is the right way to describe it, because God has had to break me open and cut me deeply in order to begin transfiguring me into the person He is calling me to be.

By Maike Hickson, LifeSiteNews - Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, supports and welcomes Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s new Manifesto of Faith... In a statement to LifeSiteNews, Bishop Schneider said he welcomes this manifesto as “a necessary and a very timely initiative, edifying the Faith and bringing light in the enormous spiritual confusion,” which can bring “to the faithful consolation and encouragement.”